Will Rio call Australia home?

Rio Tinto shares are up another 1 per cent, bringing their gains to close to 4 per cent since the axing of Tom Albanese and his replacement with iron ore boss Sam Walsh, putting an Australian back in the chief executive seat - which Australians have occupied since Rio merged with CRA in the 1990's.

So should Rio shift its domicile to Australia?

At the end of last week, BusinessDay pointed to the serial snafus at the company in recent years with a London HQ, and also the fact that the bulk of its earnings come from Australia.

Additionally, the UK has a longstanding tradition of mining investment houses, but not of actually operating mines, which is a big difference. Then at the weekend West Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart gave the topic another nudge, pushing for Rio to call Perth home.

So perhaps to put a bit reality into the debate, it is worth considering just where Rio's shareholders are based. According to the company's most recent factbook, 37 per cent of are registered in the UK with another 9 per cent in Europe, 19 per cent each in the US and Australia with the remaining 16 per cent in Asia.

Even if you allow for the fact that the UK holdings are overstated, since it would include funds from other regions but which are managed in the UK, this would mainly be European and Asian funds, not Australian or US money.

Looked at historically, there has been a steady decline in the UK ownership of Rio. In the early part of the last decade, it stood at around 60 per cent of the capital. So there has been a slide in UK ownership, with a modest rise for Australia (from around 15 per cent) and the US (from about 12 per cent).

London may be handy for interacting with the investment community, but it is a long way from where the bulk of its operations are, or where the bulk of the future demand for its output lies - Asia.